Thiripyitsaya Sakura Bagan

... for 8100 Kyat. For a break during the heat of the day, we hung by the pool and did some reading. We decided to keep the bikes (it will be dark after dinner, but the roads are not busy and people are mindful of pedestrians and bikes at night). We dodged the usual group outside our hotel, but when we went to a nearby Temple we realized that the camera was still in the room. We were followed by motorbikes to the money exchange upon our second ...

... yellow and red. The later paintings around the 13th century also have blue and green. Our guide also explained that Hindu figures appear in the older temples (around 11th century) as there is some influence before Theravada Buddhism was widely practiced (and still is today). If you are a good Buddhist and are pure of mind, when the next Buddha arrives you will be able to go to heaven at that time. Buddha only arrives once every 5,000 years... He also explained that ...

... were staying two Czech & Slovak travelers, who I had a dinner with. Another dinner I had with my Canadian Kalaw-trek fellow I also met in Bagan. There are so few touristy places in Myanmar that travelers keep bumping into one another over and over again around the country. Last day I did a quick round-trip to Mt Popa, a pagoda placed on the top of over 700m high hill, offering great vistas over surrounding plains. Bagan is a real must and ready to satisfy any traveler.

... was s*mewhat missing the p*int, the bigg** picture, that a c*untry that had been ****ed und** c*l*nial rule f*r as l*ng a Burma had, then pr*mptly turned *v** t* a military regime and withdrawn fr*m the w*rld stage, had t* have a deep** und**lying explanati*n f*r their current situati*n than pr* "lady" and against. As it turns *ut, Burma's hist*ry, s*ciety, and culture, are far m*re c*mplex and inwardly entrenched than I c*uld have imagined. L**king ar*und this c*untry, y*u ...

... important as there are 5000 of them! Brenda and George's never-ending travel energy and penchant for creating full schedules originally had us visiting most of them but we cut it down (just kidding). Actually we visited a bunch of them, I'm guessing twenty including: (note this spelling is purely but partially phonetic and would bare no resemblance to what would be in a guidebook or what anyone knowledgeable would write): nat long john - one of the very oldest temples from the tenth ...

... and honest. We checked into (guesthouse name?) on advice from Thiri. It was $10 for a decent sized, well worn room with hot water and AC. The AC only worked part of the evening due to the inconsistent power throughout Myanmar. Friendly owners fed us breakfast upon arrival. I think we had the best papaya we've ever eaten, along with eggs, toast and the ubiquitous packaged coffee. I arranged a horse cart to take us around to the temples for 6000 khayt (about ...

... the Myingyan plain. It's not a mole though - these pagodas that date to circa 11th century were feverishly built in a relatively short space of time at the instruction of converted kings at this birth of Burmese Buddhism, as it replaced Hinduism in Myanmar to become the now de rigueur religion. I skip the standard horse-cart option for one of the two days I'm here, opting for a rickety old bicycle to get me around the plain. It ...

... hanging by the silicon at the top. Karen spent the rest of the journey cowered under her blanket for fear of being impaled. The rest of the journey saw two other close calls - a truck laden with bags of rice a few minutes ahead of us nosedived into a drainage ditch, and the old taxi we got in to get back to Rangoon central, narrowly dodged a bouncing truck ...

Although we had planned to stay 5 nights in Bagan, with 4 full days available and sufficient time to go around on our own, we had booked a car with guide and driver for the first day - through Michael Pfeiffer - and it was really worth it, because Aung, our guide, understood very well to select pagodas and temples of different styles and periods. Hence, we got a very good overview of the main attractions in Bagan. We left the hotel at 05:30 to see the sunrise, were brought to ...